What in the sweet delicious maple-syrup-flavored carbonated beverage is going on in the second round? It’s almost as though the Hockey Gods purposefully mismatched all of the series to give the teams a bye into the conference finals. The four teams currently losing their respective series’ are imploding faster than the plans for Roger Clemens’ new book “Marriage—how the Rocket makes it work.”

As of this very instant, 9:11:02 AM MDT Today May 1, 2008 AD, the series stand as follows:

Flyers lead the Canadiens 3–1

The Canadiens have thrown their boy wonder Cary Price out with the morning trash and are now playing Halak. Carbo has never looked more tired at post-game press conferences in his life, and the Flyers don’t even seem to have broken a sweat yet. Montrealers are getting ready to put down their happy rioting clubs and arson kits, and are looking through their closets for their angry rioting clubs and arson kits. Things are going so well for the Flyers that even Darien Hatcher is able to contribute, despite the notable handicaps that include the fact that a) his skating stride is best clocked with a calendar, and b) he’s a caveman brought back to life à la Encino Man.

The Stars lead the Sharks 3–1

Ron Wilson went on record after the game last night lamenting that “You (the media) have us dead and buried already.” No Ron, the fact you are down 3–1 to the Stars has you dead and buried. Dropping two overtime games has you dead and buried. The fact that your Sharks scored their first power play goal of the series last night has you dead and buried. The two members of the media that follow your team with a passing interest are merely reporting on the gong show that you are icing on a nightly basis. Blaming the media for the Sharks being screwed ain’t it, son. No matter, when you’re an analyst on TSN next season—you know, ‘cause you’re about to be fired—you can see what its like on the other side of the microphone.

The Wings lead the Avs 3–0

Oh man, the Avs aren’t even putting up a fight. Our boy Smytty is out with an injured foot and leading scorer Paul Stastny is out for the rest of the series. In other words, neither will be on the ice when the Wings win tonight and the Avs are swept out of the building. The Wings meanwhile show no signs of slowing down. Chris Chelios has taken to bench pressing the entire training staff between periods, Franzen has eight goals—eight goals!—so far and Zetterberg and Datsyuk combined on a goal last night where they had passed the puck between them five times before they scored.

Yikes.

The Pens lead the Rangers 3–0

The Penguins are 7–0 to start these here 2008 playoffs. The Rangers sadly, are not. Sean Avery is out with a lacerated spleen, Lundqvist won’t leave his crease to cut down an angle for love or money and the Pens are planning on making a day trip into Canada so the 80 per cent of the team who can’t legally drink in the US can celebrate their win properly.

Does anyone on the Canadiens, Sharks, Avs or Rangers want to put a full 60 minutes of hockey in during the next game and make any of these series even the least bit interesting? Or does Mike Tyson get to beat a baby mercilessly within an inch of its little life? Is that what you people want? ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?